“The historic city of Groningen has got all the things you'd expect from somewhere picturesque and Dutch - canals, bridges and bikes. If there is any graffiti, it's almost certainly going to be in perfectly punctuated English. But what it also has is hundreds of students from the UK - and the number is rising."

"This is the university application season for UK students - and open day visits now include trips to Dutch universities, which are pitching themselves as if they were offshore Russell Group institutions. Since tuition fees rose to £9,000 in England there have been repeated forecasts that students would head for cheaper European universities. Now it seems to be actually happening."

Across the Netherlands, there are 2,600 UK students in universities this term - up by a third in a year. And independent school head teachers want Dutch universities to be included in the Ucas application form. The University of Groningen is a microcosm of this - up by 33% to around 300 UK students, for whom it has had to put on special open days. This 400 year-old university, second oldest in the Netherlands and in the top 100 of international rankings, now designates itself as an English-speaking institution. It is running more degree courses taught in English than in Dutch, with students from Germany, China, the UK and the Netherlands itself, all learning in English.

Fee refugees

For families from England attending the open day in Groningen, the question of tuition fees is never far from the surface. Phoebe Watkinson and her father Phil had travelled from Wirral. Phoebe said that as well as being less expensive, going to a European university would give her an "edge" in the jobs market. "It shows a certain quality, it shows bravery to go to another country and it's not that far from home," she said. "I thought do I want to settle for paying £9,000 to go to a university that is not going to give me the same quality of education as somewhere that costs 2,000 euros (£1,400)? The hesitation would be that I would be far away from my family... University can be quite a lonely experience.